So… The Institute.

Adventure stories like Fallout really revolve around the villains. They are the ones that drive the action and set the motivation for the hero to continue through their hardships. As such, the Institute is so insanely important that you can’t drop the ball like Bethesda did. For me, this is where Fallout 4 must begin. Which means we need to pop over to the Commonwealth Institute of Technology before the bombs dropped.

CIT would have been, before the war, a massive centre for robots and artificial intelligence engineering. Their developments and staff had to have played a major role in the war effort both in creating the powersuits that would allow the American army to repel Chinese forces as well in fabricating more theoretical warmachines like the Robobrains. As such, no doubt researchers at CIT had developed predictive models and simulation results that at least suggested there was a good probability for total nuclear destruction. Maybe they didn’t feel a need to formulate their own fallout shelters, erroneously believing that Vault-Tec’s governmental contracts meant such needs would be met. Surely, however, they would have had older or test facilities built beneath the CIT campus, however. Thus, when the bombs fell, the staff and students were instructed and directed to these primitive shelters. However, perhaps in their own arrogance or maybe just in administrative screw-ups, the shelters were clearly not stocked well enough to support all the students and staff cowering in them. Furthermore, their campus wireless network was blown offline and their access to the robotics facilities and the numerous machines built there was lost. 

Recognizing something had to be done or they would all die, several senior staff and scientists bravely volunteered to venture out into the radiation and try to activate and program the robots to tend to exterior repairs of the shelter as well as secure food and water for those inside until the outside world became more tolerable for human life.

Taking what precautions they could, they set out into the nuclear winter. Suffering heavy radiation, they managed to activate some rudimentary robots but recognized that they didn’t have the time or terminals to program them sufficiently for their duties. One of the senior staff offered a bold option that would change the direction of the Commonwealth forever. These senior staffers would hook themselves up to an experimental cryogenic system that would hook their consciousness up to the digital system in the labs and allow them to control the robots manually. 

Coincidentally, these pods were designed with the help of the scientists from Vault 111 who were more focused on their long term effects on the human body while the CIT pods specialized in the applications of the mind. Holy shit, we’ve just made a perfect connection with the start of the game!

Thus, these original staff saved the people of CIT and operated as their robotic guardians through the next few years as the landscape was ravaged with nuclear weather, raiders and monsters. But once the radiation had subsided enough, and the area secured well enough, the survivors emerged. They were moved by the sacrifice these researchers did, vowing to reward their actions by unfreezing them. However, the technology was still experimental and those thawed ended up dying whether through the process or the insane amounts of radiation in their bodies. Worried about losing their heroes, they turned to brain mapping and preserving these magnificent brains in great databanks.

This was the start of the Gestalt.

A peculiarity of the Fallout universe is that while there are incredible leaps in technological development, other aspects of their tech are sorely lacking. As such, their storage capacity for digital information is closer to the huge server banks of yesteryear rather than the miniaturization revolution of our days. Thus, while they could store these minds in these servers, they couldn’t really communicate with them individually. These uploaded brains were instead treated as one system and it produced a highly complex entity composed of dozens of personalities, knowledge and skills. This gestalt of minds ended up being insanely valuable for the survivors to consult as it preserved years of advanced computational, robotic, physics, mathematical, psychological and engineering knowledge that would have been otherwise lost. So, even those valued minds that didn’t make that fateful journey but were now aging and in risk of losing their own expertise were uploaded near death, their haggard bodies frozen in a dwindling supply of cryopods. When last these survivors could no longer keep safe the bodies, they resolved to just preserve digital copies of the minds. 

But they vowed, one day, that they would restore these heroes to life anyway they could. They just needed to develop the bodies for them. 

They first started trying to use old Mr. Handy, Protectron and even their experimental robot designs to house the Gestalt. And, if they hooked them up to the wireless system on campus, the Gestalt could interact with them as it filtered the complex computations of the digital mindbanks into its representative body. However, if these machines left the range of the network, the connection was severed and the robot failed. The Gestalt express this process as highly traumatic to its memory cores. So the survivors looked at isolating small portions of its personality, trying to tease out the old minds from the collected whole. Yet the processing units of these simpler machines was simply not suitable for the vast quantity of data uploaded from the brain mapping. Even worse, the survivors were worried of permanently damaging the minds of their revered elders. 

So, they vowed not to experiment with them any further. Instead, knowing there were others out there, they could turn to using other survivors of the bombs to refine their process. Of course, no one is going to willingly volunteer to have their brains forcibly digitized so… some ethically questionable tactics had to be employed. 

And all the while they worked, the Gestalt focused on advancing and expanding the digital campus network so they could keep protecting and providing for the survivors. Time passed, generations changed and more and more great minds were added to this burgeoning digital consciousness as the people feared losing the advanced knowledge of the project they toiled on. In this way, the Institute was a slow birth of attempted fealty and reverence along with desperation and necessity. The Gestalt could tirelessly man the turrets and machines of the CIT campus to chase out or dissuade deadly adversaries like deathclaws or raiders while its people worked on trying to save them. In time, the Gestalt came to process other communities arising from the ruins around them. Fearing that the Institute’s technology and expertise would be highly sought by these people, the Gestalt focused its efforts on leading its people underground. The labs could not easily be moved, but dormitories and living quarters could be better protected deep in the earth accessed only through the twisted maze of access tunnels once connecting all the old campus buildings. 

In this way, the rest of the wasteland came to discover small research outposts and labs that were heavily defended. However, to their eyes, these were just hermit researchers using old pre-war robots to protect themselves. And the Institute made no effort to dissuade them of this misconception. As such, the Institute isn’t really one place. It’s numerous laboratories and factories, all connected through secret service tunnels underground and protected by the Gestalt consciousness through its wireless network. The Gestalt could sense an intruder in one satellite location and immediately prepare and evacuate all others in danger. In return, the Institute scientists played to the ignorance of the wasteland, presenting themselves as independent researchers oftentimes feigning ignorance of their colleagues operating mere blocks away. Then, at night, during down time or when threatened, the Institute scientists retreat from their labs to the underground bunkers beneath the now abandoned CIT main campus with none the wiser. 

And it is beneath the campus where the CIT cognitive databanks are stored, housing the massive memory of the Gestalt. Above ground, the wasteland recognizes it as a deadly wildland filled with robot experimental creatures who kill anyone who tries to scavenge it. For the CIT robotics department had created numerous robots, from birdlike animatronics to large dog or catlike machines to study dynamic movements, flight patterns and numerous other mechanical inquiries. These robots were repurposed by the Gestalt as a defence force that could operate in a staggering and surprising manner to defend its otherwise dead appearing home. 

Thus, the Synths are the culmination of many years of development by the Institute. They wanted to create humanlike robots with the ultimate goal of teasing apart the consciousness of the Gestalt and restoring them to bodies capable of feeling, tasting, loving and hurting. Their experimental process necessitated field tests of sending out kidnapped consciousnesses into the communities to see if they would succeed at achieving the human experience. And in their compassionate mission, the Institute realized that, yes, this allowed them unprecedented infiltration and spying that no other organization could match. But there’s a hitch. These aren’t mass produced bodies and these consciousnesses they send out aren’t mere machines. These are their heroes, saviours and revered elders. Each Synth is a precious being which they want to keep safe and protected. Any that are lost necessitate an even larger force to reclaim. As the memory cores of those units carry the precious, one of a kind minds. 

To add a further wrinkle, they found that while they toiled to save the Gestalt, the Gestalt was also slowly changing. The personalities, for lack of better language, grew accustomed to being one. The process of isolating a mind into a Synth for field work can be highly traumatic. Extended separation can cause unfathomable psychological stress and damage. Many of their Synths developed personality aberrations. And some of these psychological failures resulted in the Noodle Shop Massacre of Diamond City. Some Synths, once separated from the Gestalt, develop complete psychotic breaks and flee into the wasteland in their madness. There many become raiders or other personalities altogether as the mind tries to cope with the separation. 

As a result, the Institute never ceased its kidnappings. It just started being more selective. They developed a means of assessment for targets, looking for those with the correct psychological make-up that could tolerate separation from the Gestalt for their fieldwork operations. They also had to demonstrate the same quality and character that would maintain the mission and want to return to the Gestalt. This is why Vault 111, which the researchers knew about since they helped develop the cryogenic pods, was so important to plunder for minds as these pre-war personalities were far more pliable for fieldwork than regular wastelanders who had communities and families to which they felt kinship towards. 

And, ultimately, the Institute is still struggling with keeping the minds of their Gestalt stable. Reuploading to the Gestalt is the only way that they can keep these personality matrices in proper synchronization. 

Now, I think this gives some proper motivation for the behaviour and motivation of the Institute while also adding some complexity to their philosophy and goals. Obviously we can’t just leave the work here but we need to break it down into a mission based story progression. So, we need to ask ourselves how do we want this faction represented in a playable story with some measure of player agency over its outcome?

For me, I think Fallout 4 would really benefit from having specific leaders leading their factions with obvious tangible goals. These should be fairly easy to communicate as well while allowing the player and ability to support or resist said leader’s direction. 

With the Institute, Shaun was a terrible, terrible figurehead. Now, there is a strong story for the kidnapped child of a cryogenically parent being the villain of the world in which the parent wakes up in. But this is not that story. We would need far more connection with our son Shaun and there would necessitate a level of character development and personal journey that Bethesda has consistently failed to demonstrate in their entirety of their career. So let’s not set our bar too high. I would keep Shaun as a high ranking scientist of the Institute and there could be several side quests dealing with him in various capacities. In fact, I have a very clever way to integrate Shaun much better into the main gameplay and narrative than having him as this immovable political figure with no actual ability to shift at the player’s efforts. 

Instead, the clear leader of the Institute should be the Gestalt. The story of Fallout 4 would revolve around settling the conflict between the four main factions vying for control over Boston. I’d have it that, with four factions, a player must conclude the game by allying with one. The other three can be resolved in one of two ways: diplomacy or combat. However, the have a proper rising climax, each faction should have a hated adversary which, when allying with that faction, necessitates the destruction of its opponent. 

So the way to “resolve” the Institute violently would clearly be to break into its core Cambridge bunker and explode the memory banks of the Gestalt. This literally obliterates their political aspirations in the region and would bring all their operatives to lay down arms as they have no reason to resist after that fact. And look, such a choice for the more likely route a player takes doesn’t actually encourage genocide. We can be moralistically responsible too, Bethesda!

On the other hand, siding with the Institute makes this more interesting. As I mentioned, I want tangible changes to the world as the story progresses so that players can see an immediate impact of their choices (in support of different factions). For the Institute this gets more complicated.

However, given that they’re meant to be an incredibly advanced society of scientists and engineers, baked in complexity is a perk and not a bug. 

Thus, we need to settle on a goal for the Gestalt. We know the Institute is creating Synthetics to give bodies to their revered leaders. This would effectively make them ageless since, should their Synthetic bodies ever get damaged enough they can replace them. However, this process of uploading and creating Synths of prominent members wouldn’t be rolled out for everyone unless the risk of death is close for the obvious reason that it deprives the faction of parenthood and some key important survival elements. Synths, no matter how advanced, can’t make babies since they are still reliant on biological personalities to power their robot bodies. 

So while the Gestalt is happy to have individual bodies for themselves, they’re not actually looking to return to a “normal” human life that their scientists and research expect. 

The Gestalt is a digital hivemind. From the perspective of those that are absorbed into it (willing or not) it is a combination of both a greater collective and individuals. Each personality is integrated into the grander personality bank, becoming operating cells of a greater whole. It’s a community, or city, gaining sentience and operating at a separate cognitive level than those from which it came. For the Gestalt, Synths are not a means of ending the collective – they’re about expanding its range of operation and sense. 

The Gestalt is more focused on expanding CIT’s pre-war wireless network. As mentioned earlier, the Gestalt is able to use its wireless signals to command and possess any robots which enter receiving range. And given the large number of robots scattered throughout the Commonwealth, by spreading their wireless network they can expand their “physical body” to greater distances. Imagine an overseeing consciousness capable of instantaneously analysing and executing coordinated operations across the entirety of the Commonwealth. It could detect an approaching raider attack and immediately withdraw its civilians while simultaneously moving a response force to intercept and deal with the attack. It could, in fact, be so precise in its operation that it could calculate exactly which farmsteads and factories are in danger while leaving others in the area still operating and maintaining productivity. Furthermore, any advanced system falling inside this wireless network runs an extraordinarily high chance of being hacked by the Gestalt and converted to its own operation, halting most technological threats. And the robots beneath its command would serve as effective defense against primitive threats.

Thus, the Gestalt directs the Institute to expand out from its central research core to activate old, pre-war terminals and systems to bring this wireless network back online. The Institute believes that this allows the Gestalt to retrieve and integrate the stored information within those systems into itself. Which is true. The dual purpose of expansion is to broaden the entity’s knowledge and reach simultaneously, making each new wireless hub a powerful tool in its arsenal. So the Institute fields its lower generation Synths – both human and animal robots – alongside researchers to ruined university laboratories and computer systems to install or reactivate this powerful wireless network. I would have a blue digital field projection to visualize areas where the wireless network was established, giving players carrying robots with them effective warning for zones they should avoid with their companions if they wished to keep them peaceful. It would also give visual clues for quests against the Institute to direct players towards the wireless transmitters that they would be tasked with destroying.

So in my prior posts about Fallout 4’s shortcomings and changes I would have done for it, I covered the lack of important locations and weak world building that deprived characters motivation for the story. I feel like Bethesda tried to emulate New Vegas’ structure with the action centred around a single point of interest and having a bunch of interests squabble over it. Yet, Diamond City was never designed to be an important or strategic piece in any faction’s goals. Likewise, it ended up being rather sparse in interests or details nor did it qualify for its in world importance.

My fix was to develop five important political bodies each with an invested interest in the ruins of Boston and a brief description of how they are integrated with each other. However, while I liked New Vegas’ direction, I don’t think Fallout 4 has to follow so closely in its predecessor’s shoes. So, the Boston ruin settlements help to flesh out the stage for the conflict but not the conflict itself. 

Furthermore, I don’t think it’s constructive to look at a flawed result and say that to fix it you have to pitch everything about it out and start over. I’ve already expressed that those situations don’t really interest me. So, in my efforts to provide an alternative to what we had, I tried to preserve what I could of Bethesda’s efforts – in spirit if not in design.

As such, the crux of the conflict should center around the Synthetics that sucked up so much oxygen from the actual release.

It also means fixing the massive mess that is the convoluted and contradictory entities that are the Synthetics. And that means we’ll have to put their creators, The Institute, squarely in centre stage. 

But first here is a quick rundown of the Synthetics. They are robots designed with cutting edge artificial intelligence and advanced engineering so as to be wholly indistinguishable from actual human beings. 

Seems reasonable enough except whenever Fallout 4 tried to get into the nitty gritty details.

For one, the earliest you’ll stumble across talk of the Synthetics is at the small village of Covenant. There, following their quest, you’re informed that a person is impossible to identify whether they’re a robot or not until the individual is dead and you’re able to dissect the body to find robot parts. As such, the doctors of Covenant were attempting to create a psychological test that would reveal the nature of Synthetics without having to resort to death.

However, this brings up way more questions than it provides answers.

First, how the hell can you not tell a robot until you’re dissecting it? I’m not sure if Bethesda has taken literally any biology classes but if you cut a person, they’ll bleed. And they’ll bleed because our circulatory system is incredibly complex and important for providing oxygen, nutrients, hormones and nourishment to our entire body. It seems trivial to tell the difference. Prick a person’s thumb. If they bleed then they’re human. If they don’t. They’re a robot.

Unless, of course, the Institute created the Synthetics to have a fake circulatory system. For argument’s sake, let’s assume they did this. The marvel of the Synths could be that they Institute was able to fabricate a fake cardiovascular system that provided veins and blood to each of their robots. This would mean, despite what the characters argue in game, the only purpose for Synthetics is literally as infiltration units for the rest of the Commonwealth. There is no other logical reason to develop and build such an insanely complex and ultimately pointless system other than to try and obfuscate the robot’s identity. In Far Harbour, we learn the fate of one unlucky Synth is that they were grabbed by cannibals and eaten before they could reach safe shores. And they didn’t even notice something wrong with their victim. This suggests that not only did they develop this circulatory system but they also created synthetic flesh, muscle and bone so realistic in its properties that literally people used to eating it couldn’t tell the difference. 

And also makes you wonder where their meetings debating how human flesh would taste went down. 

So if the Institute was creating highly advanced infiltration units, what was the purpose of this unfathomably difficult project? We don’t know because Bethesda never provided an explanation. Literally. As I’ve complained before, it wasn’t for manual labour because labour robots are littered throughout the entirety of the Fallout universe like discarded PPE from a pandemic ravaged world. And not only that, but these infiltration units are incredibly more fragile than an actual armed robot army as they now must bleed and be crippled from wounds, seek to preserve themselves and be susceptible to radiation and other biological maladies that other robots would naturally carry immunities. The only logical explanation is, then, that these were meant to be spies and sleeper units with the next logical step being that the Institute was planning some sort of tyrannical invasion of the Commonwealth that would be accomplished so quickly as the people in power were either replaced by complicit Synthetics or easily neutralized by infiltrated Synthetics. 

However, why would the Institute want this? We learn that the Institute is nothing more than a bunch of scientists from MIT who survived the apocalypse in their secret underground laboratories and, quite literally, want nothing to do with the pathetic squabbling outside world for being so barbaric and primitive. You literally have a conversation with your son on the roof of the old Cambridge Square building where he laments how disgusting the rest of the world is and how he doesn’t regret never leaving his hole except for this moment. 

As I’ve said, the plot of Fallout 4 is insanely, incomprehensibly stupid. 

I simply can’t accept that a secret scientific society would ever approve the amount of attention, resources and time required to develop this incredibly useless technology. To add insult to injury, the Institute literally developed teleportation technology rendering the argument for an infiltration unit moot since they could appear unexpectedly exactly on their target and then vanish before anyone could respond. And yet the news of this world shattering technology kind of hits like a warm fart. Your faction of choice is like “That’s neat” when you inform them and then they blithely move on with whatever inane issue Bethesda cooked up to occupy your time. 

So, first order of business, kill the teleportation technology. This was literally a deus ex machina designed to fix obvious plot holes in their story when they were writing it. Furthermore, the ability to teleport would have such unfathomably far reaching effects for the world going forward that you do not want to open that can of worms on a franchise that you have any intention of continuing with. It’s the sort of thing that’s either pre-baked in or it will eat up the entire narrative whether you want it or not. And since Bethesda is so gungho on making Fallout a post-apocalyptic survival sim even though its been multiple generations since the apocalypse, this is clearly the dumbest decision I’ve seen on the top of a heap of idiotic choices. 

And since I’m committed to making Synths work and the crux of the story, we now need to do the work Bethesda wouldn’t. 

We need to come up with an explanation for these dumb robots which exist in a resource strapped world that already has robots. As a reminder, the apocalypse in Fallout occurred because the world had exceeded the natural limit of its resources to support an insanely energy wasteful society. Fallout happened specifically because there wasn’t enough resources to go around. So if we want to create a new kind of robot that is immeasurably more wasteful and difficult to develop than the rustbuckets in our garbage cans, we need a damn good reason for doing so.

Last post I wrote about how I would spruce up the world of Fallout 4 and focused on its gleaming capital along with the figures you would find at its central, beating heart. 

But the Boston ruins shouldn’t just be Diamond City. Since the major players of the story are focused specifically on its control, there should be an immediately tangible reason for players to understand what is at stake. While New Vegas went the route of having its titular location glamoured up, I would instead have the bulk of the area’s population concentrated in the greater Boston ruins. As such, I’d put four more major settlements in the bombed remains of the city. While I do care about some degree of realism, I think one of the fun elements of Fallout is having people form cities in weird places or recontextualizing old locations by repurposing them into habitats. 

So let’s start with Massol.

Massol

Massol takes its name, like many locations in Fallout, from a bastardization of a rather generic or familiar modern day place. In this case, this city is built on the Orange Line in the Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority, specifically at the Back Bay Station. This would be an underground city based around the old subway system. Naturally, when the air raid sirens blared and the bombs fell, people fled to where they thought they would find shelter. For many residents of Boston who didn’t have access to Vaults or fallout shelters, this ended up being the underground tunnels. However, the underground was never designed to be shelters. It was a catastrophe, as thousands upon thousands of citizens were killed in these murder holes. The detonations collapsed the tunnels on top of them. Ruptured water mains drowned others. There was no protection from radiation leading to many getting sick and dying from exposure.

However, despite the scale of the tragedy, some people managed to survive against the odds. Perhaps they were buried in the rubble but managed to dig themselves out. Or maybe through sheer luck, they managed to find themselves deep enough to avoid the worst of the hazards. Most turned into ghouls, mind you, but life is life. Instead of crawling to the hostile surface, these people dug further into the dark. They created a warren of tunnels through the old transit system. And these tunnels turned deadly as many of these ghouls slowly became feral.

But in the meantime, there was a congregation of survivors. They formed a fort against the crumbling walls and prowling monsters. With access to the city’s buried power cables and sewage, these survivors formed a rudimentary community underground. And with some ingenuity and cleverness, they even managed to get it thriving. For once the people of Massol made contact with others above ground, they found they offered a highly valuable service that no one else could – transportation free of the early radiation danger and the opportunists and monsters that now prowled the streets. Massol quickly learned that they could charge handsomely to get people and things through the tunnels. And for a people largely subsisting off radiated water and mutated roaches, this gave them much needed food and water that wouldn’t kill them. 

Furthermore, the service provided by Massol proved vital for the numerous settlements throughout the Boston ruins. It facilitated advanced trade negotiations. Nowhere near pre-war levels but excess resources produced at specialized sites could easily be converted into necessary goods otherwise dangerous to obtain. The success of a settlement, so long as they could secure access to the Massol lines, no longer required fresh water, tillable earth and fortified positions. 

Of course, the feral ghouls which periodically raided the pump cart transports (and mostly those not operated by Massol ghoul technicians) ended up being more of a publicity problem than a logistical one. Those that started to get comfortable with the Massol transit lines were worried that the ghoul operators would turn on them during work. In time, this worry turned to discrimination and ultimately ended in exile for the original survivors who established the settlement that saved so many lives.

Now, Massol is more discriminatory towards ghouls than anywhere else and they spread their distrust of the heavily irradiated wherever they go. But otherwise, as a people, they have proven hardy and ingenious. Though they operate simple outposts at station posts, its central hub is Back Bay where most of the settlement (and derailed train cars) have been repurposed into a bustling hub. 

And, technically, Massol is independent of the other cities in the Commonwealth. However, much like Flotsam Burg, they are heavily influenced by the Diamond City Brahmin and the Gardner family in particular. Massol and Gardner workers ensure the buried power lines of Diamond City are functional to power the generators of both cities. Massol further specializes in excavation, digging into ruins from the ground up while running lines, pipes and power beneath the earth to those above ground. However, despite their vital service, most look down on the people of Massol, viewing them barely above the ferals and ghouls which they chased out. 

In terms of gameplay and story, Massol would offer the player a means of fast travelling through the Boston core – assuming the player pays and stays on the city’s good side of course. It would start off limited to the Orange line, from the remote terminus near Franklin Reserve and the eastern port of Flotsam Burg. However, quests available to the player would be expanding the Massol lines, culminating in access all the way to Framingham in the north, Vault 88 in the south, Deadum and Quincy. These could involve clearing tunnels of ghouls or distant stations of raiders and monsters to allow the construction of new station posts. The guards for the Massol lines would start as Gunner mercenaries but as the player and the factions influence who controls which areas of Boston, faction guards could take their place. Other quest opportunities could be helping defend underground power generators that supply Massol and Diamond City or scavenging fusion cores from distant ruins and army bases to bolster the city’s stockpile.

As a note about quest ideas, these are just generic ones. They could be part of Bethesda’s persistant “radiant AI” quests which are basically just randomly generated mad libs. Or they could be the basis for a fully fleshed out, unique and multistep questline. The point is to demonstrate how location and design can also feed into gameplay to keep driving narrative and world design.

Flotsam Burg

Flotsam is perhaps Diamond City’s closest ally. Arising from the ruins of the Port of Boston, its centrepiece is the great vertibird carrier USS Conscription which smashed into the Port Authority from the tsunami caused by several warheads detonating into the ocean. The docks were decimated and over the years, untold amounts of rubbish and garbage had washed into the port. From this huge bay of refuse, residents built floating bridges and gangways between the largest wrecks. It first started to access vital salvage from these great, rusted corpses. But in time, and with some technological ingenuity, some were able to get boats operational in the bay. What started as desperate scavenging turned to a more rustic fishing community. Homes grew up on the gently bobbing metal islands.

Now, residents ply the waters outside of Boston, selling seafood (mutated and otherwise), harvest from the giant kelp forests, pick through the barrage of garbage and waste still washing up along their shores and terrifying locals with stories of sea monsters. Most dismiss these as tall tales to keep others from encroaching on their aquatic bounty. But in the end, only the most brave or foolish trek out to the Deep Dark. 

Their access to the ocean and distant communities, however, make them an excellent hub in commerce. Naturally, and likely to the surprise of many Diamond City residents, the Cabot family runs their trading headquarters from Flotsam Burg. They’ll go into a long argument about honouring the original genesis site of the company and honouring traditions but they largely set it up here to avoid the Peabody rent, though their primary outfitter is still located in Diamond City. The Cabots naturally exert a lot of influence in Flotsam Burg and, some argue, justifiably as their early financing helped to see the city rise above the muck and saltwater to be an actually respectable location instead of merely a shifting garbage heap as others may desire.

And while many might find the constantly bobbing ground of Flotsam a little stomach wrenching, the community is safely protected from raiders with Diamond City Security. For the settlement has provided, with the use of the Massol underground network, some unique opportunities. One such find is a semi-submerged Chinese nuclear submarine. And while certain parties are likely highly interested in the possible scavenge of such a high valued target, all the nuclear payload was discharged against the continent a hundred and fifty years ago. 

Gameplay wise, Flotsam Burg could give some quick travel options along the coast, whether it’s hitting up Salem or even heading out to the dlc of Far Harbour. A unique quest could be plundering the Chinese submarine, complete with the disappointment of learning its nuclear warheads are already gone (though there’s surely nuclear material in its engines still). Flotsam Burg would provide a unique environment for specialized enemies from mutated fish as well as give glimpses of the terrors from Blight Horror Country in the north. Quests could include salvaging operations for sunken ships and cargo.

Franklin Reserve

South of Diamond City and situated in the old grounds of the Franklin Park Zoo, the Franklin Reserve is a dangerous and often avoided community. Overseen by the Warden, the people of the Franklin Reserve live amongst the woodlands of the expanding Emerald Necklace. Once the city’s prided park system, connected by rivers and walkways, the green belt has since gone wild and expanded in the wake of the bombs and human depopulation. The animals, once a main attraction, have escaped into the sprawling lush to multiply and thrive. 

Some of them even mutated. 

The people of Franklin Reserve are largely descendants of the old staff, administrative force and animal hospital. Where once their predecessors devoted their lives to protecting the animals, however, the current residents of the Reserve have turned the parks into a sort of wildlife game hunting operation. The Warden is responsible for maintaining controllable levels of animals and plants while trying to prevent these mutated creatures from overrunning the rest of the greater Boston area. 

She’s had some limited success in this operation.

More than anything, the park ground and abundant flora and fauna make the Franklin Reserve a key contributor to Diamond City’s food supplies. Of the satellite settlements which feed the city, the Reserve is largely free from political meddling by the Brahmin. The Reserve had long survived the apocalypse on their own without the aid of the elite and when they allied with the other cities it was less out of necessity than any of the others. The reservists are, naturally, proud sovereignists and their expertise in navigating the swollen waterways riddled with crocodiles and terror birds rather ensures that few can challenge them deep in the otherworldly city jungle. 

But this isn’t to mean they don’t have their own problems.

A group of Treeminders have moved into one of the “jewels” and become a political nuisance. While reservists see the wilderness as open grounds for exploitation, the Treeminders have a completely different philosophy. Determined to stop logging, poaching and hunting of the natural life, they have frustrated the reservists expanding economic ambitions. Furthermore, the Treeminders display an equal level of skill in living amongst the plants and animals despite their refusal to kill the creatures. No greater point of contention is the conflict between the reservists and Treeminders over the fates of Dinai and Kamaia. Blocking waterways and trapping hunters, they have successfully stopped efforts to kill the two ghoulified lion brothers. Since being mutated by radiation, Dinai and Kamaia have since become as undying as any human ghoul and their unnaturally long lifespan lends them experience in stalking the fens of the reserve that makes them almost mystical. Needless to say, they are the area’s apex predator and are not concerned with ambushing a full Franklin Reserve patrol and wiping them out to the last member. 

Adding further to the reservists problems are the encroaching Pilgrims who naturally side with the Treeminders over the issue of the wildlife. The ghoul Pilgrims see the mutated creatures almost as kin and also take a position of preservation towards the irradiated crocodiles and mutated cassowary birds who are much larger, meaner and deadlier than they were to pre-war populations. However, unlike the Treeminders, the Pilgrims do not have the training or knowledge of the reservists radio frequency which irritates the cassowaries and keeps them from attacking, so their advance is currently stopped by the vicious wildlife.

Gameplay wise, the Reserve would offer players a varied environment, deadly enemies and opportunities for unique quests. Hunting the legendary lions would certainly be a great end game achievement. Diamond City merchants could have some unique quests where their supply of game meat is being disrupted or drying up, prompting players to head to the vine choked waterways to discover the culprits. Smuggling and poaching, either stopping or committing, could be a lucrative endeavour within the reserve. Of course, resolving the tension between the Treeminders and reservists would benefit greatly the Brahmin of Diamond City or any of the major factions looking to sway these potent rangers to their side.

Skyward Freepass

Also known as Skypass, this small community is built at the top of Boston’s highway overpass soaring over the old financial district. The bombs and general decay has crumbled much of the city’s extensive freeway system. Thus with a limited and treacherous ascent to Skypass, the settlement offered a uniquely defensible position for early survivors. With a great height advantage over dangers and easy access to rain and sunlight, Skypass became an ideal location to test low soil crop growth. As such, the Kennedy family provided the settlement with new seeds and such to test if they would also allow the family to build a satellite research center within their community. At the time, Skypass had little to offer the communities spreading around them and, seeing the wealth funnelling to Diamond City, recognized an opportunity to expand beyond a meagre outpost to a prosperous centre. 

Skypass is the only central ruins city that is not on the Massol line and thus their produce is harder to reach Diamond City residents. Transport is exposed to ghouls and raiders in the ruins. But those that make it through find a very successful agricultural settlement. Skypass is so bountiful with their modified crops that they toss their excess food (and compost) over the edge to attract natural animals that they can hunt from their lofty perch. A complex mechanical elevator offers an alternative entrance from the long slog up the crumbling freepass itself but both are heavily guarded by Skypass’ snipers that they have largely been left alone by the villains of the Boston ruins. 

The Skypass Research station has also provided additional benefits to the settlement through their top secret projects. Wind turbines give the people a comfortable supply of power free from the rare gas or nuclear fuelled generators of other settlements. The centre also has a radio station in contact with Diamond City that helps monitor the weather so the farmers can better improve their yields. Skypass welcomes the researchers with open arms as, given its secluded location, they spend most of their time in Skypass, hiring mercenaries for infrequent trips back to Diamond City to share results of their projects.

Skypass offers the player another unique and interesting location to explore and base from even if it would likely have less happening in it than other places. The Kennedys are also ripe for unique quest opportunities, whether it is exploring their secret science projects or their shady drug connections with the local raiders. More generic quests could involve an escort of traders or researchers from Skypass to Diamond City or even simple delivery and retrieval of vital supplies to the expansive farming community. More unique opportunities could be available given the people developed for the community. 

And that concludes the major settlements in Boston. From these, the game could offer small farms and homesteads that players could build up and develop which could be integrated with the rest of the area depending on how robust a trading and supply system the development team would be interested in creating. If it were just to keep the basic systems in place, then these would simply be building spaces for generic villages and farms like Abernathy Farm or The Slog.

There’s something about reviews that have been bothering me for a while. They are, by their nature, very critical. Duh, right? However, there’s a tendency for focusing on the negative and not on the positive or constructive. But that could just be my reviews as I end up reviewing things with a lot of flaws. However, it’s one thing to point out something that isn’t working, it’s a wholly different beast to find something that does. 

So while I was playing Fallout 4 and noticing all these things I didn’t like, I started to wonder what I would have done to tune it more to my tastes. Obviously, “make it New Vegas” isn’t a particularly stunning recommendation. And, frankly, I love New Vegas but I want to see new things. I want other narratives to succeed. I’d like to have new favourite games which I incessantly point to as examples of things “done right.”

And, frankly, Fallout 4 isn’t complete garbage. There is enough there that it still captured my imagination. At the end of the day, the creations that stir the most emotion in me aren’t those that are abject failures. If the game is completely irredeemable, it doesn’t stick. It’s a failure. There’s not much more to say. It’s the games that have rough edges but a gleaming core that linger. For it tantalizes with the possibilities of “what could have been.” Had Fallout 4 taken a different route, I can easily imagine it being fantastic. 

So, because I don’t have much else of interest to share, I’m going to give some ideas of what I would have done with the story.

But before I do, I should put a disclaimer. I recognize that making games is a complex process. I am able to sit here with the power of hindsight to point out where flaws glared and strengths dulled. I have no idea what the process behind the curtains was. There could have been massive revisions to the story and its direction that we don’t see. It could have very well been way worse. And without knowing what those twists and turns entailed, it’s hard to really place fault anywhere for the end product. Thus, this isn’t a finger wag. This isn’t acrimony over anyone’s work. I’m certain that the people who made this tried their best with what they were given. One wrong decision can snowball into a terrific mess. And who knows what stipulations or demands they had to incorporate from those wholly disconnected from the creative process of the product but still in charge of its financial success. 

So this isn’t me calling anyone a bonehead. But in a vacuum, these are the things I would have changed.

Now, it would seem logical to start with the game’s primary shortcoming: it’s factions. The major players meant to drive the action and stir the intrigue were woefully underdeveloped and incorporated. But I’m going to take a different tact. A striking peculiarity in Fallout 4’s design was it’s bizarre world. Taking place in the Greater Boston Area, and focusing its attention on community building, the game had a shocking dearth of actual communities. There’s really only one city and a handful of generic settlements that look like they were made with the settlement building tools. This really concentrated the action in one area but, more than that, it made the world feel very sparse and empty. Considering its regional focus and the importance placed on locations within Boston, it was odd that there was so little actually there.

And it’s even more perplexing considering that Bethesda’s other RPGs all have a decent focus on their cities. I’ve mentioned how Fallout 3 had a bunch of them isolated and disconnected from one another. But their Elder Scrolls games used towns and cities to convey to players the history of the world as well as provide a base of operations for the player as they explored the corresponding region. 

Skyrim in particular was exceptionally well crafted. Taking place in the eponymous province, Skyrim was separated into nine territories called Holds. These Holds each had a capital administrative centre, several towns, villages, imperial towers, inns, homes, farmsteads, forts, camps and many other locations. For a game release four years earlier and much smaller than Fallout 4, it completely blows Boston out of the water in terms of world building. Part of Skyrim’s success is its masterful way of drawing players into its living world ripe with history. You can feel the weight of the ages in the moss covered ruins of the peoples that came before. But you can simply get lost walking through the fields of farmers toiling away in the dirt or following imperial patrols along the roads keeping bandits and highwaymen at bay. 

Bethesda’s Fallouts, however, always have this weird feeling that the bombs only just dropped despite there being 150 years separation between the apocalypse and their stories. Furthermore, it’s hard to be drawn into the present day turmoil and conflict when there’s no sense of what is at stake in terms of the people and their communities. And it’s almost laughable how Skyrim went from 9 capitals, 8 settlements and 10 villages to 3 cities (Diamond City, the Institute and Goodneighbour), 3 settlements (Covenant, The Slog and Bunker Hill) and a vault (ignoring DLC).

Now, I think it’s clear that this anemic population is partly due to the building mechanic given that most places that would be an interesting settlement were building locations for your settlers instead. And then Covenant and Bunker Hill are pretty indistinguishable from the few populated customizable farms which makes distinguishing the two almost a fool’s errand. But that just makes the comparison between the two even more laughable since I didn’t bother counting up Skyrim’s farms and smaller communities.

Not to mention that player settlements are not and could not ever be a suitable replacement to an actual planned and built community from the developers. You don’t get the unique quests, assets and characters there that you do in a properly handcrafted location. You also lose out on all the environmental storytelling and sense of history if everything is just a sandbox awaiting the player to do all the environmental work. Lastly, it makes it really impossible to give your factions something to struggle over as most of the countryside is empty mud puddles eagerly awaiting your crafting hand.

And it’s not like you couldn’t meld developer and player crafted locations together. The player’s house in Diamond City is a building location. I see no reason that other settlements couldn’t have “open plots” for purchase that the player could have used to stretch their creative building desires within a much larger, living community. 

As such, I’m going to outline how I would have expanded the world of Fallout 4, dropping details on history and societies as I go.

Today, I’m going to start with Diamond City.

Diamond City was lauded as the Great Green Jewel in game because it was the largest and most fortified community in Boston. Established within the soaring walls of the baseball stadium Fenway Park, it is remarkable because it is truly the only place that feels like a city. It also establishes what players of the Fallout series expect in a community: a junktown community founded in a strange or interesting location and adapted into something totally different and unique. The pitcher’s mound now houses a large fusion reactor from which the shanty community stretches outward like a maypole connected to dozens of rusted metal mushrooms. I like Diamond City though it’s hard to not even feel the scarcity of world development even in its most populous centre. Part of this is due to the fact that there’s really not much there. The city is just the baseball stadium with only a few generic turrets outside its door and several NPC guards roaming the block. 

Given that there is some focus given to its impressive Green Wall, I would have liked to see Diamond City expanded. For one, the Wall should stretch out from the stadium, being built up with the junk of bombed skyscrapers and rusted transports to allow Diamond City to protect the tenements and apartments on its every side. This should be the New Vegas of Fallout 4 with an appropriate sense of scale. The stadium itself should have utilized every possible square inch too. Instead of the bleachers being mostly flat, poorly rendered benches blocked off to the player by invisible walls, they should have been covered in rickety and titling scaffolded homes and walkways. With such limited space, the residents of Diamond City should have built up before expanding out. Furthermore, the concession stands and perimeter hallways should have been choked with shanty homes and shacks. The necessity for expanding the Green Wall beyond the baseball pitch into the city proper should have been one of logistics meant to address the burgeoning population as people came from far and wide for the precious resources offered by the city as well as the protection. 

The meagre agriculture and pasture in the diamond’s outer field should stand as an obvious indicator that Diamond City long grew beyond its means of self sufficiency. And while their plumbing provides precious filtered water, parcelled out by water merchants at the few sanctioned water fountains and repurposed restrooms (with Diamond City Security constantly on patrol for illegal tapping of water mains), the city only stands now because it is the central economic hub of the Boston ruins. 

And its prominence is ensured by the Diamond City Brahmin.

No, these are not special mutant cows. See, in Fallout, brahmin are the name given to the domesticated mutated bovine which are all that remain of the prewar cattle infected with the devastating Forced Evolutionary Virus (FEV). Though given that brahmin exist in the lore already, the jokes write themselves. Instead, the Diamond City Brahmin are what remains of the incredibly wealthy and influential families who resided for generations in the Boston area and shaped its development and politics before the war. Only five of them remain, the rest having died from the bombs or the end of civilization that followed. Those that remain did so through the grace of their earlier investments and influence affording them an upperhand in surviving the initial apocalypse. They also managed to survive to the present day due to their vast wealth and naturally positioned themselves as the leaders of Diamond City and its local environs. Though the mayor of the city is democratically elected, the results have always fallen to one of these family members. The real politics of the city is the relationship between the five and power brokerage is exchanged amongst them through favours for the coveted leadership.

The five families are:

Kennedy

The Kennedy family prewar were large proponents of education for Boston and the preservation of knowledge. They funded museums, colleges and research institutes. They headed important public school funding programs and ran charities for securing food for school children. The Kennedys also helped to keep Boston medical research at the forefront of development with generous donations to important health initiatives. It was this focus on health that saw the family survive, as they were provided some radiation pills and guidance for a potential nuclear winter that saw them and many of their circle live through those harsh first years. Post the apocalypse, they have continued their medical and research focus. They own the Diamond City Research Centre and are majority stakeholders in the local clinic. However, with the destruction of the old banking institutions, the family had to turn to covert chem production and alcohol distillation and distribution to maintain their lavish lifestyle. Thus, they quietly keep the Dugout Inn supplied with potent drinks and chems while also supplying local raider groups in the Boston area the drugs to keep them compliant. And while some may suspect a connection between the raiders and Kennedys, they can hardly be blamed for the erratic behaviour of stimmed up bandits even if they miraculously avoid Kennedy interests while harassing the rest of the Brahmins’ interests.

Cabot

The Cabot family had nearly fallen from eminence in prewar Boston and thus, the surviving members weren’t even in the city when the bombs fell. While the countryside avoided the worst of the detonations, it was nowhere near safe as mutant creatures and feral ghouls became a daily threat. That plus the lack of food and supplies brought the Cabots back to Diamond City once word got out that people weren’t just surviving but thriving. However, this “temporary exile” lent the Cabots a unique advantage as they had developed numerous connections during their time beyond the city. Pulling on this network, they quickly organized a scavenging and merchant operation. It wasn’t long before they were the primary suppliers and traders within the greater metropolitan area. The Cabots were not shy with flexing their blossoming wealth, turning profits back into the Cabot Outfitters and forcing out competitors. To keep ahead of the scavenging game, the Cabots sunk massive amounts of caps into securing the prosperity of Flotsam Burg and they, in turn, rewarded the Cabots with almost unopposed control of the city’s direction.

Crowninshield

Crowninshield were one of the oldest, wealthiest and long-lasting of the Brahmin families. They maintain that they were key in making Boston the city it was before the bombs even fell. The family’s wealth before it was all destroyed was staggering and they could afford the best shelters and emergency responses even for such trivially unlikely scenarios like total nuclear devastation. And the Crowninshields were no fools. When they emerged from their shelters to see the waste of Boston before them, they knew all their prior influence would hold little in this new world. However, it takes time for people to adjust. And in that time, they leveraged their influence and resources to secure a strong arm that would help them rebuild everything that was lost. Word spread to the strongest mercenaries and the most desperate souls that the Crowninshields would pay handsomely for service and in time the locals came to heavily rely upon the Crowninshields for protection. They are primarily responsible for the maintenance and expansion of the Green Wall as well as the operation of Diamond City security. Common perception is that the enforcers are loyal to the mayor of Diamond City and, so long as the mayor is in accord with the Crowninshields, this perception remains largely true. And with the charges and tolls the Crowninshields charge to anyone passing through their heavily fortified gates, they are never short of caps in ensuring the loyalty of their martial force. Those that truly anger the Crowninshields have a tendency for finding themselves before Diamond City Security for breaking laws they didn’t even know existed. As such, some often joke that there are more Crowninshield “guests” in the city’s cells then there are actual criminals.

Peabody

The Peabodys were always interested in public works. They, in fact, owned Fenway Park before the bombs dropped. As it turned out, the service tunnels beneath the stadium were just as effective as fallout shelters as they were for safeguarding the generators and purifiers from rioters and protesters during the turbulent resource crisis. In old Boston, they were a fairly minor Brahmin family. But as the owners of the fortified heart of post apocalypse Diamond City, they are kings. Naturally, they own Market Pitch and all the tenements within the city, making vast sums of caps so long as Diamond City continues to be the beating heart of the Commonwealth. They were also able to quickly establish the Diamond City Reserve when the settlement was first getting its footing, creating the only post apocalypse bank in the metropolitan area. The Peabodys then turned their quickly amassing cap fortune to investing in startup operations to develop the settlement so it would be the shining beacon which attracted all others to it.

Gardner

The Gardners stand unique amongst the Brahmin for being a “new blood” family who had little influence before the war. They claimed their forebearers came in from Jamaica Plain after the bombs fell, seeking shelter and refuge from the ferals overrunning the distant suburb. Others claim that the Gardners originated up at Corvega. And even more suggest they came from other, nefarious roots. Either way, one thing set the early Gardners immediately apart from new refugees: they had a keen technological aptitude in high demand during those early years following the bombs. They quickly ingratiated themselves amongst the early leaders for being able to bring pre-war tech back to life. This was a life-saver for the Peabodys in managing Diamond City’s water purifiers. Their knowhow allowed the Crowninshields to expand the Green Wall well beyond its initial design. And they came, through various means, to come into ownership of the massive reactor in the center of Market Pitch, allowing Diamond City to glow as bright as it does. However, some question the loyalty of the citizens of Massol to the Gardners as well as the rumours that the family was instrumental in getting that city running.

As the description of the families suggests, Diamond City would be larger and feature more specific locations that could be easy springboards for interesting quests that would provide glimpses for the player into the history of the city. They could help the poor people of Diamond City to setup an illegal water tap into the city’s plumbing so they could get around price gouging water merchants. There could be an investigation into nearby raider groups attacking caravans and a connection between them and the Kennedy’s illegal chem production uncovered. The Crowninshields may hire the player to assist in acquiring difficult materials or clearing out a dangerous area as part of the Green Wall expansion. Maybe even have a quest line dealing with the election of the mayor and the political intrigue amongst the families over that if you so wanted. And that’s just off these short descriptions of the family and city.